Overview
Advanced communication and remote collaboration are key requirements
of our modern society. Yet, the notion of presence over large
distances is relatively little understood from a scientific point of
view, and there is a variety of perceptual and technical research
challenges that need to be addressed to design truly convincing
telepresence systems.
Existing practical solutions to remote communication and
telecollaboration focus on video conferencing, but are significantly
limited. Standard commercial video conferencing systems rely on 2D
displays and single video cameras to acquire video streams of the
collaborators. These systems do not have the abilities to capture and
render all the details required for a seamless immersive
experience.
To enrich the expressiveness of human communication, we envision
solutions that would let us perceive our remote collaborators
seamlessly embedded into our own working environment including
autostereoscopic 3D display devices and acquisition systems that can
capture not only video streams, but also other types of information
such as 3D geometry, motion capture data etc. The ideal system is a
sensory-rich environment that provides a highly compelling experience
that is the epitome of presence including perceptually crucial cues
such as eye contact, mimicry and gestures. Given the recent progress
in graphics, vision, and robotics as well as novel sensor, capture and
display technology, we believe that it is now time for another
pioneering and radically new approach.
The central enabling technology for mobile telepresence
applications and telecollaboration will be a mobile and adaptive
autostereoscopic 3D display platform, which can display collaborators
at remote locations.
The ETH side of the center is responsible for the two projects:
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